They are the former owners of Bi-State Machinery, a John Deere dealership that had been a part of Greeley for years and became a part of Colorado Equipment/Colorado Machinery in 2006.

They left the dealership earlier this summer when things didn’t work out the way Duane thought they would following the merger with Colorado Machinery. They moved to Casa Grande, Ariz., where he is working for a man who owns five John Deere outlets in Arizona and eight in Nebraska. He’s been put in charge of sales and marketing for three of those Arizona dealerships – one in Casa Grande, one in Tucson and one in Thatcher.

“I wanted to work for another four or five years before retiring and this has worked out nicely,” he said in a telephone conservation. “I don’t wake up at 2:30 in the morning and wonder where the next payroll is coming from,” he added with a laugh.

The Wallins had come to Greeley in 1990 when Duane and Jeanie became part owners of Bi-State Equipment, then became sole owners of the dealership in 1999. In 2003, they added the Fort Collins dealership before becoming a part of Colorado Machinery LLC of Colorado Springs. That merger also included Romer Mercantile of Holly and Lamar and increased the Colorado Machinery dealerships from five to nine. A tenth was added in Cheyenne.

Duane and Jeanie became partners in all the entities and he remained as manager of the Greeley and Fort Collins operations, until the differences brought on the decision to sell and move to Arizona.

But while in Greeley, they entrenched themselves as strong supporters of area agricultural organizations and events.

Since moving to Arizona, Duane and his wife have been living in a recreational vehicle resort complex, but he said their La Salle area home sold recently and they are looking at homes in a new area southeast of Casa Grande, which, of course, has a golf course handy.

Duane said he’s adjusting to Arizona agriculture.

“It’s interesting country. I’m about to get an introduction to cotton here in a week or so,” he said. There is corn grown in the Casa Grande area, he added, but it’s chopped at harvest time for the huge dairies that dot the north side of Interstate 80 on the flat desert from Casa Grande west to Yuma. There’s also a lot of hay grown for those dairies in the region.

“They get 10 cuttings (of hay) a year down here,” Duane said. In Weld, farmers feel fortunate to get four cuttings a year, but hay grows year-around in south-central Arizona.

The dairy industry, however, is hurting in Arizona just as it is everywhere else.

“They are saying down here they might lose 40 percent of their dairies before all this gets sorted out,” Duane said. The industry is a tad different also, trying to keep cows cool during summer months where temperatures on the desert between Casa Grande and Yuma tops 100 degrees regularly and reach 110 or more on some days.

The cows, Duane said, are kept under pole barns during the heat of the day.

“They have big fans under the roof that blow mist over the cows to keep them cool,” he said. Got to wonder what the electric and water bills might be for that kind of operation.

The three dealerships he deals with are also different. In Casa Grande, there’s a lot of hay baling equipment and other agricultural equipment, while in Tucson, it’s more commercial equipment, and equipment for large property owners in the area.

“Thatcher is more of a farming community, so we have a lot of standard ag equipment there,” Duane said. As a result, he said he spends some time traveling. Casa Grande is about 30 minutes or so south of Phoenix and an hour and a half from Tucson, while Thatcher is in the eastern part of the state, about 120 miles northeast of Tucson.

Duane said the decision to leave the Greeley area was not easy.

“It sure felt like home there and we miss it,” he said.

Bill Jackson has covered agriculture in northern Colorado for more than 30 years. His column runs every other Sunday. If you have ideas for this column, call him at (970) 392-4442.